Busy hopping up and down on the tip of the dead tree’s tallest branch to prove itself the acrobat of the bird world, the mockingbird has no time to waste on the more retiring meadowlark, a fence post songster content to issue melody to a world in need of such gift.

The mockingbird will wear a listener’s patience thinner than the credibility of a magic potion salesman, but the song of the meadowlark never grows tiresome.